I played FH and FH2 with a controller and minimal assists, but picked up a wheel for 3 and have started learning the ropes with assists off and manual shifting. Overall things are going well, and the learning curve hasn’t been too horrendous, but I am having difficulty with the higher end cars that would normally just be taken care of via TCS.
I understand the whole “don’t just gun the engine” thing, but it feels like I wind up in one of two situations - either I spin out because I’ve hit the throttle too hard, or I am not accelerating fast enough and I just wind up in the dust. That “sweet spot” eludes me. Also identifying the right gear to be in at any given point is a little tough for me to tell with things like the Aston Martin Vulcan, etc, which just exacerbates the problem.
Overall I’m having a ton of fun with the game, but I don’t know what I don’t know, so improving by trial and error is not very effective. Any tips, pointers, suggestions you might have would be super awesome. I do sort of wish the Forza games had a teaching mechanism that newer players could run through to improve their skills, but that’s a topic for another thread.
Fine tuning the Tire PSI, and the cambers of your cars help a lot to stabilize the handling, and the sheer raw power going to the back wheels. If nothing else, you can always opt to make your cars 4WD for an easier time with handling. Also bigger tires is always better for absolute grip. And don’t run less than race tires on a 600+hp car.
You’re hitting on the topic of tuning as well which is all well and good, but the statements you’ve made here may as well be in a foreign language. I know where to find the PSI and Camber adjustments in the tuning menu but I wouldn’t even know where to begin trying to adjust them, or what I should be looking for in response to adjusting them. I’d rather not derail this thread into the subject of tuning (a valid topic, especially for newbies like me!), but rather focus more on the mechanics of better driving and driving habits.
Go into the upgrade shop and select engine upgrades, and look at the graph showing your engine’s power band. You want to keep the RPMs in the area where the engine is making the most power. If the RPMs are dropping out of this range in corners, you’re in too high a gear, downshift as you brake for corners.
So the only time I used traction control in a forza game was Forza Motorsport 2. What I did to learn was I turned off all assists like abs, tcs, driving line, stability control, all the stuff like that and I set the Drivatars (AI at the time) to the easiest difficulty so I felt like I had a big margin for error and then if I thought I had somewhat mastered the assists, I would turn the Drivatars up to make it a little more difficult to make me have to drive faster. I would also recommend using a RWD car to learn (Vulcan is perfect). I’d also recommend tuning your cars or try downloading someones tune and see if that makes you more confident. BTW what wheel do you use? The settings you use can help. I run 100% FFB and 100% Vibration at 900 degrees on my TX so I can feel the wheel lose traction so I know when to ease of the throttle. Hope this helps!
Not using a FFB wheel (little out of my price range), using the Thrustmaster Ferrari 458 wheel. In regards to tuning, that is another topic of discussion entirely as there is also no mechanism for learning that within the game either. I can turn the difficulty back down on the AI from where I am at to work back up, but don’t really feel like this addresses the fundamental problem. Worth giving it a shot though.
Might be bad form to bump your own thread, but going to here anyway.
So unfortunately, still not having a lot of luck in race situations with supercar class cars or higher. My choices remain: 1. Get smoked at every acceleration point (off the line, at apex of turns, etc), or 2. Spin out of control when I touch the gas pedal (and I do mean touch in many cases).
I have tried a few cars at this point, though primarily the 2017 Ford GT and Aston Martin Vulcan. Driving around in free roam is, obviously, fine, but the minute I want to do a race of any sort, forget it. I don’t think I’ve seen a podium yet with one of them. Circuit races, with their frequent turns and quick acceleration points, are the worst for this, though I don’t think I’ve even managed a decent sprint run either.
Is there some trick other than either buying a $400 wheel or turning assists back on? The lack of any way to learn the game beyond trial and error is starting to get extremely frustrating. Right now it seems like the shifting thing and knowing what gear to be in at any given time is a minor concern if I can’t manage to actually accelerate at the same rate as even the slowest AI driver.
I really don’t think this is a tuning issue, as it should be possible to just straight up accelerate off the line without having to granny drop the throttle with a stock vehicle tune. Sorry, but I am definitely hitting a frustration point with an otherwise beautiful and awesome game.
One suggestion I have if you’re having trouble taming some of the beasts in the game … drop back a few classes and master them before heading off to the top of the class list. At lower speeds in lower class cars it’s easier to learn and master driving techniques that still apply to 1000 hp cars. You just have a lot more leeway in the lower classes to learn without being so frustrated.
As Wildcat mentioned, learning in cars with less power will help tremendously.
I don’t use a wheel, but as far as hitting the sweet spot, it can’t be too different than a controller. Honestly you eventually hit a point of having so much power that a rwd car can’t put it down at low speeds and will have wheel spin (or when you try to have none, feels very sluggish). I tend to stay in lower class cars because I’m lazy and feel like I have to work too hard to control the wheel spin in super cars. Either way, I have a 1300hp Ford GT HE. It’ll spin 1st through most of 3rd. But like I said, it’s at that point where it’s basically too much power. So you’re going to have wheel spin no matter what. In this case use throttle control, give half throttle or so (different for every car and situation) spin a little in 1st, shift early into 2nd, spin a tad more, let off and shift into 3rd (so by this time I’m doing 80mph if not more), then slowly roll into it until I’m flat out or in 4th. From there it’s very easy to drive.
So now you have to slow down and turn, avoid using the gas in turns, especially in lower gears, and remember to be gentle and roll into it. Some turns you’ll have to deal with the whole 2nd-3rd gear again. Others you can get away with staying in 4th and lugging the engine a little more than normal (dealing with 1300hp here, flat out a little earlier in 4th is easier and sometimes a little faster than babying the last little bit of 3rd). I know a lot of this pertains to the HE Ford GT, but throttle control is throttle control no matter what car you drive.
Now you can see why I like some lower class/horsepower cars. Most of what I drive will spin 1st, 2nd, and chirp 3rd if I’m flat out and just dump the clutch. If I drive normally and want to be fast it’s very easy to control and still have the extra bit to play and have fun with.
I’d just turn some of the assists on.
Those cars are engineered to go to extremes far beyond human reaction and control.
Most all hyper cars have butloads of assists because the designers know that if you even glance at the gas pedal sideways the car is going to break traction and spinout.
Even with assists on they are often just at the edge of controllability.
The other thing is using tuning and it the differential that will help you most. Lower accel diff – but honestly- it’s practice and feel and you only getting used to it. If you don’t have feedback (we do now with controller) it’s just practice and lots of failure but you eventually get it.
That said. Every now and then when the practice is just too much work put on the TCS. About every car in the world has TCS (even the GT3 and LeMans cars use TCS. there is nothing wrong with using it at all.
Fact is looks like this Horizon TCS is very beneficial in non AWD cars.
Another thing. In these 1000+HP cars it’s rare to actually use 1st gear- heck on SatNite’s scooby I’m only in 1st for as long as it takes me to switch to 2nd. This may help quite a bit so I figured I add that. Short shifting helps tons on getting used to throttle oversteer